Outstanding Achievement: Ray Davies

With a new album, a musical and a documentary on the way, the award-winning Kinks front man is clearly still working all day (and all of the night)...

Ray Davies' autobiography

X-Ray ends in 1973. Which is fine if you want to hear about how two quarrelsome London brothers started a Mersey-beat combo, became quintessential English songsmiths and evolved into a stateside stadium act. Along the way, they played the first heavy-metal riff, introduced nostalgia to pop and set the template for sibling rock rivalries. As becomes clear upon meeting the 66-year-old Davies in person, though, he's been very busy ever since. Not that he ever seems anything but composed. Even on hearing the news that he's to be this year's recipient of

Sitting in Crouch End's Konk studios, Davies has the louche manner of Bill Nighy coupled with the dry wit of Alan Bennett. Dressed in what he describes as "old-world Caribbean chic" (Hilditch & Key shirt, trainers by Asics), he recalls his most high-profile gig of the year: playing Glastonbury's Pyramid stage with the Crouch End Festival Chorus. "I was playing as England were being knocked out of the World Cup," he explains. "The producer was trying to get me to change the running order of the songs in case England won. Good job I didn't."

Although happy to discuss the decline of the national game, Davies is more content talking about his new album, a series of duets with Kinks acolytes from Frank Black to Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen.

Davies is clearly thrilled by the project - but it's no replacement for his regular band. "I miss having the Kinks around me as a unit," he says. Talk of a reunion persists, despite the death of bassist Pete Quaife earlier this year. By the time you read this, Davies is hoping to have staged a memorial in Muswell Hill - and Davies' brother is very much involved. "Dave is a very likeable chap," says Davies. "I know we have history, we're famous for having our falling-outs, but he's a decent fellow. But it is that edge that keeps that creativity going."

Davies has a number of other preoccupations, too. "I regret I can't do three things at once," he says, before talking about how Julian Temple is hoping to make a Kinks documentary; developing a musical of Schoolboys In Disgrace (his 1976 anti-Establishment satire); and a new album with new material: "If I just sang the old songs, I couldn't do it any more." It'll come as no surprise that he is also considering writing another autobiography...